Bishop of London on the Incarnation in today's world

I spent my first Christmas as a priest 35 years ago at a time when the church was somewhat introverted and generally regarded with a mixture of pity and disdain. In those days, the sociologist Peter Berger predicted that all over the world, religion would be pushed to the margins of life and become the concern of harmless sub groups. He has recently admitted that he was wrong and religious convictions and institutions have taken centre stage in a way that few members of the Anglo- American elite predicted.

Now the influential journal, The Economist, has deliberately changed its editorial policy because it no longer subscribes to the doctrine that it is possible to describe the daylight world, while ignoring the role of faith. One of the November issues contained an eighteen page supplement on "Faith and Politics".

This turn of the religious tide has brought encouragement to some but now instead of disdain and pity there is fear and alarm. These are some of the signs of the times which we are taught as Christian believers to observe in this season of the Church's Year. This is a time when we seek to re-appropriate the wonder and the hope which has entered the world in the birth of the holy child while we also meditate on the deep structure of life and the Advent of God's intention for his Creation.

Men's hearts are failing them for fear of what is coming upon the world [St Luke XXI; 26]. This is a time of promise but also of peril. Nuclear power and genetic engineering could be a blessing but also a curse.

The danger is at such times that desperate people resort to force and control often with the best intentions. In our country there is a small but growing band of secular fundamentalists, encouraged by the success of Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion", who portray faith as delusional and religion as some kind of "virus" which needs to be extirpated if the reign of truth and goodness is ever to be realised. We know from the tragic history of the 20th century where such totalitarian notions lead. But believers also need to look at the history of their own communities to confess the times when the God of un-coercive love, who came as a vulnerable child and lived among us as a servant, has been betrayed and used to justify tyranny.

The most dangerous "god delusion" of all is to make gods of human beings by ignoring the dark perversity in human life and our propensity to evil. We are so used to being flattered that if there is an obstacle in the way of realising the perfect society someone or something else must be to blame.

God's gift of his Word made flesh came to live amongst us communicating forgiveness and reconciliation. It was gift that provoked Herod to fury as he contemplated the danger that his world would be turned upside down by the arrival of the holy child.

God does not come as a Satan whose name literally means "the accuser" but as a child to love the loveless into loving and to draw us into his marvellous light. He does not come to coerce us into some Brave New World but to invite us to freedom in relationship with Him.

This Christmas join the growing numbers of people of every race and tribe in London who assemble to worship, to question and to pray.

This Christmas come and see this thing which has come to pass. Contemplate Mary with "immensity cloysterd in thy deare wombe". Trace the story in Holy Scripture and join the doubters and seekers, the shepherds and the men from the East. The Church can look the darkness of the world in the face and not despair because our confidence is not in ourselves but in the light which shines in the darkness and which has never been extinguished.